Our View: Do we really need new federal fracturing regulations?

Published 3:46 am, Monday, March 23, 2015

In this March 29, 2013, file photo, workers tend to a well head during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. gas well outside Rifle, Colo.

In this March 29, 2013, file photo, workers tend to a well head during a hydraulic fracturing operation at an Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc. gas well outside Rifle, Colo.

Photo: Brennan Linsley

Our View: Do we really need new federal fracturing regulations?

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Approximately three years in the making, the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Land Management has unveiled its new rules government fracturing on federal lands.

Members of the Permian Basin’s oil and gas industry have called the proposed rules a solution in search of a problem. There is some merit in that response.

Under the new rules, to take effect in June, companies that drill on federal lands must disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing on the FracFocus website within 30 days of the operations.

This is a rule already followed by those oil and gas operators who work throughout the state of Texas. The Lone Star State was the first in the nation to require such disclosures and has served as a model for other states that have enacted their own such requirements.

While this may not have any significance to West Texas operators — after all, Texas has almost no federal lands — it could be significant to those operators who also operate in New Mexico, which does have federal lands.

It could increase the cost of the wells they plan to drill and the additional layers of bureaucracy could slow drilling activity.

The first question to be asked is why such duplication of regulations is at all necessary.

The second question to be asked is how does this impact how the states oversee oil and gas operations within their borders: Will the states retain primary oversight?

As Ben Shepperd, president of the Permian Basin Petroleum Association earlier wondered, will this open the door for other federal agencies to chime in with their own regulations?

It remains to be seen if the regulations meet Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s stated goal of continuing responsible development of resources on federal lands while assuring the public that development is being done safely and transparently.

Oil and gas production on federal lands has been on the decline. And that should be a concern to everyone because those lands don’t belong to the government. They belong to us, and the royalties and rental bonuses oil companies pay to produce oil and natural gas from those lands go to pay our police and firefighters, our military, the military, maintain infrastructure and educate our children.

We applaud regulations that ensure our resources are developed safely and responsibly. We shouldn’t accept undue regulations that only raise barriers.